Give God Your Past

Today's Three-minute Bible Study
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Title: Give God Your Past ------------------- Date: 7/16/2001
Keywords: "fellowship" "future" "light" "past" "present"
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Passage: Ephesians 5:7-10*

7. Therefore do not be partakers with them;

8. for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light

9. (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),

10. trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

Questions

1. Some Christians believe that it doesn’t matter what they do after they have been saved because they are covered by God’s grace. Is this belief supported by the passage above?

 

2. Why does it make a difference how we choose to live our lives?

 

Practical help

There is always the temptation, when we have overcome a bad habit like porn addiction, to be smug and look down our noses at those still struggling. Verse 8 above reminds us that we were "formerly darkness" ourselves. On the one hand, it is fair and reasonable to move away from those who draw us into the darkness, however that is not the complete solution. Jesus came into a world of darkness to save sinners and we are called to be like Him, overcoming darkness with light.

The Apostle John put it this way in 1 John 1:5-7.

5. "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

7. but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin."

Give your past to God and give Him permission to use it in other people’s lives. Give Him your day today and ask Him to walk you through it giving wide berth to temptations. Finally, give Him your tomorrows and ask Him to grow you into a man or woman that pleases Him in all you do and say.

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*"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."